Koeman lavishes praise on Rooney

Everton boss Ronald Koeman says that Wayne Rooney proved he is "still one of the best in his position" after his goal gave Everton a 1-0 win over Stoke in their first game of the new Premier League Season.

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Rooney returned to Goodison Park this summer fter 13 years with Manchester United insisting that he was not moving to a 'retirement home'. The 31-year-old showed he had plenty left to offer as he rolled back the years to put in a fantastic perofrmance to help Everton to their first league win of the new season at the first time of asking.

Everton beat Mark Hughes' side by a goal to nil, with Rooney heading home Dominic Calvert-Lewin's cross from the right after a lovely team move to guide his hometown club to victory.

After the game Koeman was full of praise for the England international: "I think he was different class in ball possession - he was comfortable on the ball, he took right, good decisions on the ball and he scored a great goal. And you cannot ask more [than] that."

When the Dutchman was asked if Rooney had performed exactly as he would have like he replied: "Yeah, that's what you like.

"You like to have players in the team with a lot of a cleverness on the pitch and that they know, they see and they handle what they need to do at a certain moment. That was his best game so far.

The game was not Rooney's first back in the blue of Everton as hes already feature in the Europa League but the 31-year-old looks set to be a key player for the 'Toffees' both on and off the pitch this season.

In terms of his influemce, Koeman told 'EvertonTV' "That's experience. He played a long time out of the highest level in football. He won titles and of course that's a big experience.

"We have some young players, they need to learn, they need to improve and they have a really good teacher - not always in talking but also what he is showing on the pitch."